


Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Brother-Sister Relationships, Charles Is a Darling, Families of Choice, Food, Gen, Inspired by Photography, Introspection, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

title: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 1970  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme, Armando Munoz, Moira MacTaggert, Angel Salvadore, Erik Lehnsherr  
rating: G  
notes: A nonpowered AU inspired by [this plate of shark cookies](http://tmblr.co/ZIJNMxRh2YFk). The two types of cookie described in this book are both from Nigella Lawson's _How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking_ : [Christmas Decorations](http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/christmas-decorations), which is her take on _Lebkuchen_ ; and [Butter Cut-Out Cookies](http://www.culinate.com/books/collections/all_books/how_to_be_a_domestic_goddess/butter_cut-out_cookies), which would be pretty perfect for making shark-shaped ones with. Writing music included [Share It Maybe](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qTIGg3I5y8) [Ear Worm warning!].

  
Charles groans quietly as he catches a glimpse of crimson and blue cloth darting past the gardener and into the kitchen door, and then he cuts off that groan with a laugh - and suddenly he's laughing so hard he tumbles himself into a snowdrift shaking with mirth in the silence of the surrounding cold.

The gardener, Mr Turner, is grinning and shaking his head as he lifts Charles to his feet. It is easy for him; he does it with one hand clasped firmly around Charles's forearm, and he doesn't even seem to be bothered by the basket full of food and tools in his other hand.

"Thank you," Charles says, smiling and knowing his cheeks have gotten warm, and incidentally trying to make the muscles of his face stop hurting from all the laughter.

"No, boy, thank _you_ ," is the response. "I do like it when I see you and your sister laughing. You both look much better then."

Charles is mostly successful at not letting his face fall.

But Mr Turner seems to sense that anyway, and he puts a large, warm hand on Charles's head. The hand stays for a long moment, and then the gardener touches that hand to the brim of his cap and walks on, off into the gardens, toward the little cottage he keeps just off the Xavier lands.

Charles is left to sigh, and to push the heavy door into the kitchen open, and he conscientiously stamps the snow off his boots and off his coat. He might be shivering with cold and shaking with a sudden fierce hunger, but he still has to do these things, because he doesn't want to make more work for Mrs Hirsch - their housekeeper has enough on her mind already, what with her daughter about to give birth any day soon and the house still needing to be kept in order, just in case Sharon and Kurt come back for the Christmas holidays.

Which means that once he's fetched up next to the long marble counters and the warmth of the oven, a rosy-faced Raven is already halfway through a second mug of milk and a third plate of biscuits - but as soon as she sees him, she scrambles down from the kitchen table and wraps him in a hug.

Charles has to smile and pat the crumbs off his back as he follows her.

"Hello, dear," Mrs Hirsch says, and she pulls the oven door open, where the last batch of biscuits has been keeping warm.

Charles smiles and gratefully breathes in the rich draft of pepper and honey, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Raven laughing - but she's not laughing at him; she's laughing with him, and she's wrapping her hands around one of her biscuits, nibbling contemplatively on an angel's wing.

Mrs Hirsch looks pleased with them both, and she settles him at the table with a mug of milk and a plate with a bell, a pony, a heart, and a circle bigger than his own hand. "Thank you," Charles says, and he is silent and content as he eats.

Charles thinks about their housekeeper's smile, and about the way she talks about her family - rarely aggravated, sometimes exasperated, often worried, always fond. He thinks about how she sometimes sits up with him and Raven when she should really be going home to dinner with her husband. It makes him feel a strange mix of sad and happy and guilty, and it makes him try very hard to make sure Raven doesn't feel that way more than she already does.

The phone rings, then, and one of the scullery maids ducks in and shouts, breathless and grinning and happy, "Miss? It's a boy!"

Raven slides right off her chair, smiling and laughing, and she throws her arms around Mrs Hirsch's waist. "Congratulations!"

Charles is right on her heels, but before he hugs her he offers her his hand. "Best wishes to you and your daughter - and to your grandson."

"Aaah, thank you so much, little ones," is the reply, and Mrs Hirsch gets down on her knees and pulls them both close, and Charles feels Raven slip her hand into his and they hang on together, to each other and to their friend. "That means I must make a new batch of these things. I told you they were called _Lebkuchen_. And I will take them home to her so we can celebrate!"

"Can we help?" Raven pipes up. "Please?"

"Of course!"

Charles is fascinated by the entire process of it: the combination of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, honey, and a fierce grating of fresh black pepper; the rising scents of baking and the beautiful pale gold of the finished biscuits.

And even though Charles is slightly wary of what will happen once his sister volunteers to ice the _Lebkuchen_ , she turns out to know exactly what to do with the sugar and the hot water, and Mrs Hirsch smiles as Raven asks for two teaspoons - one to drip the shimmering white icing on to the biscuits and the other to smooth and spread it to cover all corners, and also to catch up the drips.

So Charles smiles and goes to get the gold and silver sprinkles when the housekeeper asks for them, and the three of them scatter gold and silver across the table, across the beautiful food.

*

_Twelve years later_

"Guess what I found yesterday," Raven says as she barrels through the back door and into the kitchen. She is carrying a package wrapped in brown paper under one arm, and she is also carrying a cardboard tray of coffees.

Charles looks up from where he's carefully rolling out another batch of butter cookies. "Do I even want to ask?" But he's smiling as he says it, and he knows it grows wider even as Raven pinches up some flour in her fingers and throws it at his face.

Once she's tied her hair out of the way and washed her hands and put on her apron, a cheerful pale green with the words "Blue and Gold Baked Goods" embroidered on the front pocket, she drops the package next to the resting dough and opens it with a flourish. "You've only been looking for these kinds of cookie cutters for a while. Finally found 'em," she crows.

Charles doesn't speak, doesn't say thank you, only grins and picks up the cutters one after the other. They're a mismatched lot of six-pointed star and maple leaf and turtle and violin and sheep, but the one that really stands out is the cutter shaped like a great white shark. It's a little bigger than his hand, and it's perfect.

"So, I take it we're going to be up to our eyebrows in butter today?" Raven asks impishly.

"Well," Charles hedges, jokingly, "we do have a reputation to maintain, don't we?"

"Yeah, weirdest cookies in town," Raven laughs, and she goes over to their collection and starts hunting through it for some of her own favorites: cat, duck, elephant, and the large heart that is bigger than both of her hands put together.

"If by 'weirdest' you mean we know what everyone's favorite cookie shapes are, then yes," Charles says, and he presses a kiss to her temple before getting his coffee and taking a long appreciative sip.

The bell rings out front, and by the time their three staff come in after cleaning the shop and opening it up for the day, Charles and Raven are both intent on sprucing up their respective trays of butter cookies, with an entire rainbow of icing colors between them.

"Looks good," Armando murmurs.

"The cookies we made for you are over there," Raven says absently, lifting the decorating bag at just the right moment. "Top of the fridge."

"Sharks?" Moira asks as she looks at Charles's tray. "We're not even anywhere near the sea...."

"And that's why we're making shark-shaped cookies," Charles murmurs.

"That's hubris talking," Moira teases.

"Care to make a wager on that?"

"Don't, girl," Angel says after taking an apple-shaped cookie from Armando. "He's gonna clean your clock."

Charles only laughs, and he may have to work a little more on his concentration because it's also a lot of fun to listen to his friends' banter - but he's also got his work to do, and Mrs Hirsch's recipe deserves nothing less than all his heart.

Which is not to say that he also needs a break from butter cookies every now and then, so after Raven yells at him to shake all the flour out of his hair so he doesn't look like a walking exploded kitchen, he takes a shift at the till. Everything is selling quickly, but none more so than the shark cookies, and he tips a wink at Moira, who rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him.

"I didn't think there was anyone around making _Lebkuchen_ ," a voice says, and Charles pauses from where he's been looking for a few coins that fell on his side of the counter.

He gets up, tosses the change into the cash register, and plasters on a smile - which almost falters as soon as he gets a good look at the man peering at the display of cookies, cupcakes, muffins, and pies.

Plain round-necked henley in dark heathered red over worn black jeans; a battered black leather jacket in one hand and a set of keys in the other. His eyes seem to shift color with every blink, blue to green to gray. There are so many interesting lines in his face and on his large hands.

Charles gulps, and curses himself for looking like an exploded kitchen, and tries to smile despite the traitor blush that he can feel in his face. "It's one of our specialties," he says, and wonders at his own even voice. "We had the recipe of - of a dear friend. She passed it on to us, and we've been trying to live up to it and to her ever since."

"It's like that, then," and the man's smile is a thin sliver full of emotions. "I'll take half a dozen if you don't mind."

"Any favorite shapes in particular?" When that gets him a raised eyebrow, Charles smiles and says, "It's a perfectly legitimate question! We make cookies, and we like making cookies in the shapes people like."

"I like sharks," the man says, idly, as he drops his keys in his pocket.

Charles laughs quietly. "No shark- _Lebkuchen_ , but you are still in luck." He wraps up two of the shark-shaped butter cookies and drops them into the box with the six others. "No charge on the butter cookies, but do try them and tell us what you think."

"I believe I will," the man murmurs, and he doesn't even wait - just takes the bird-shaped _Lebkuchen_ out of the box and bites contemplatively into the wing. "If you make butter cookies as well as you do this, I'll definitely be coming back. Thanks."

"No problem," Charles says. And then he doesn't know why he sticks his hand out over the cash register. "Charles Xavier."

The man's eyebrow goes up, but he takes Charles's hand in a firm, warm grip. "Erik Lehnsherr."

Just before Erik leaves the shop entirely he turns back and grins at Charles, waving one of the butter cookies at him, and Charles might be mortified and pleased all at once and everyone else in the back of the shop hoots at him afterwards, but he thinks it might be more than worth it, if he gets to see Erik and that smile of his again.  



End file.
